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Going moderately viral on Twitter a few times gives me flashbacks to my political blogging days. Itās a very powerful way to very quickly and intimately learn all of the ways you can be misunderstood because of the imperfections in your communication style. Baptism by fire
A thing I grapple with re: my identity is my relationship with being in the public eye. Many friends have privately message me over the years to ask me how/why I do it. I was a bookish nerd as a kid, maybe even introverted https://t.co/gxjcc4f3Xv
But being a weird looking guy with a weird name meant that I would get singled out a lot, disproportionately so. It took me a long time and a lot of corroboration with other peopleās stories and experiences to even begin to develop any certainty about this https://t.co/g7SuNMGw83
Iāve experimented with performing many different identities over the years. An easy role to play is that of the cool tough guy, unfazed by criticism, able to laugh anything off. I can regress to this role easily any time I want to. But itās a local optima https://t.co/8qCNhLmbQ1
With the benefit of hindsight, itās clear now that a large part of my life can be characterised as āIf theyāre going to single you out whether you like it or not, beat them to the punch so youāll be able to control the narrative somewhatā https://t.co/pUvwMT2SiR
I have a complicated relationship with the uncharitable, disagreeable assholes of the world. Iāve learned a lot about myself & the world from many encounters with them over the years, become a better writer and thinker. I donāt know if Iād recommend this to anyone else
When you put something out in the public realm, the reaction is something like: 80% ignore it 15% engage superficially 3% shitty assholes 1% useful feedback 1% new friends That final 1-2% is worth wading through all the shit for, at least for me, with no inherited ingroup/tribe
A source of peace of mind: realising that nobody (not even yourself) really knows you, and everybody is really interacting with their hallucinated projection of who they think you are and what they think you are saying. Everything is vague to a degree you cannot imagine prior
When you realize this, you realize that everybody should be given the opportunity to recalibrate their opinions. We all think we know what weāre talking about, until we encounter an alternate interpretation we simply couldnāt conceive of beforehand
Witnessing how other people interpret your words is also a fantastic education on other peopleās culture. Eg as a non-American who never went to college, Iām learning that the phrase āsafe spaceā has all sorts of loaded connotations Iām unfamiliar with except intellectually
The experience of encountering conflict, resistance, disagreement is pretty ubiquitous, absolutely. Whatās interesting is that people vary tremendously in how they respond to this. Many entrench themselves in defensive position, use denial, etc https://t.co/LN1Lttzv5e
I walked away from my political blog when it was at the height of its popularity. I was learning a lot, but it was very context-specific and I was sick of being attacked from assholes in both camps for trying to be intellectually honest. I hadnāt discovered @AlanWattsDaily yet š
This is a great example of what I'm talking about re "everything is vague to a degree you cannot imagine prior". Prior to this, I'm guessing Josh would not have ever seriously contemplated just how heavy the N-word is, or even really been able to https://t.co/Fy8MYeif9I